"And you think because some pruny bugger dredges some pages

from the Bois de Boulogne, our king is going to hand over his crown

to a Swiss gardener?"

Strange to say, the words have a physical effect on me. They fold

me in on myself, leave me saying my piece to the f loor.

"Charles hasn't declared himself to be . . . anyone."

"Not yet he hasn't."

Once more, he sets to stroking the journal's binding.

"You're sure this is your father's hand?" he asks.

"I know it as well as I know my own."

Very slowly, he begins to leaf through those age-thickened pages. "How long do the entries go on for?"

"More than a year. I'm still translating from the old Revolutionary

calendar, but as best I can tell, the last entry was written on the first of

June, 1795."

One of his eyebrows kicks up. "That was a week before the prince

died."

"Yes."

His voice stays calm, but his hands lose themselves in the act of riff ling through those pages. Coming at last to the final entry, he reads: "Enough for now." He looks up. "What's that supposed to mean?" "I don't know," I answer. "I've only had the journal a few hours.

I've scarcely read a word of it. . . ."

In fac t, I began reading from the moment it fell into my hands. At first I was only dimly aware of the words. I was too lost in retracing my father's handwriting. How it had fascinated me as a child. I would copy those vowels and consonants again and again until they began to creep into my own writing-so that my mother, glancing casually into my copybook one day, was shocked to find her husband's own signature staring back at her.

And indeed, as I sat in bed last night, the act of retracing those old letters by candlelight did seem to call him up in some fashion. Hungrily, I combed those journal entries for some mention not of kings but of-me. And when I found it, it was almost more than I could bear.

A boy named Hector.

Father's own words staring back at me.

-And is he my age?

-No, he is but 3. Although (I cdnt help but add) he knows at least 200 words. . . .

The book fell shut, and for perhaps another hour, I sat there, burning with wonder that my father had once-in a moment beyond my recalling-been proud of me.

Well, all this goes unsaid in the confines of Number Six. Or else it's all said without my volunteering a word.

"Wouldn't you know?" says Vidocq, dancing his fingers across Father's journal. "The week I want to know about is that last week, which is the only one that's not here. And from the looks of things, the only two people who can tell us about it are in the grave." He shoves the journal toward me. "All right, Hector, I want you to give this diary your full attention, do you understand me? Shake out every last line for evidence."

"Evidence of what? "

"Anything. A conspiracy, a plot. Find out who your father talked to, what he saw. Look at the text itself. Are there certain words that keep cropping up? Anything that might indicate a code?"

"A code . . ."

"Yes, damnit! If somebody was trying to spring the dauphin from his cell, I want to know about it."

I gather the book into my arms. And just as I'm reaching for my gloves, Vidocq says:

"One other thing. I want you to take your new friend Charles round the city. He's a tourist, isn't he? Show him the sights, for pity's sake. See what tumbles out."